Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Austria is home to the world's tallest snowman, after entering the Guinness World Records on Saturday.
The snowman, nicknamed "Riesi," which roughly translates to "giant" in English, measures a gigantic 38.04 meters tall, reported an Austrian press agency.
He smashed the previous record held by the 37.21 meter-tall snow-woman, named "Olympia," in Maine, US in 2008.
Riesi was built in Donnersbachwald, in the central Austrian ski-region of Riesneralm and was the brainchild of 52-year-old caretaker Gerhard Peer together with ski-lift manager Erwin Petz, according to an Austrian newspaper.
The pair originally intended for the snowman to be 40 meters high, and used snow canons to build up a hump of compact snow measuring 30-meters wide in a process that took 40 days.
The snowgiant survived winds of over 100 kilometer an hour on Tuesday evening, with only his two-meter tall hat blowing off and needing to be rebuilt.
"I did it for the children, who in the most part don't know that, when there were still real winters with lots of snow, then snowmen were built in front of nearly every house," said Peer to the newspaper.
After the world record was confirmed on Saturday afternoon, celebrations with fireworks were held near the snowman. It is hoped that Riesi will remain standing for tourists to visit until summer.
